Monday, September 11, 2006

Last Week

9/5

Oh toto - we are not in Kansas anymore. We are back to Cubeland, complete with no natural lighting, small cubes, ice cold (and damp) temperatures and the incessant ringing of phones. I long for the sunny days at Gosh-shoe where I had an office and gloves weren't required. OH, and a door.

Do you ever have that feeling of your butt being wet, but you know it's not? It's just because the air is so damp and you are sitting, causing condensation to form between your butt and the chair. Yeah, it's like that...all day.

Damp, damp, damp.

People here have their space heaters on, space heaters in early September.

I had forgotten how hellish the light can be in here. It has a completely unnatural tone to it.I had forgotten how stupid some of the people here can be.I had forgotten how much I don't want to be doing this.

I need a real JOB and I need one fast.

And I managed to miss my exit this morning and thus was late...on my first day. Late because I missed my exit, but also because two stop lights, very crucial for good traffic flow were on flashing red. I sat in traffic for 40 minutes along one mile of road.

I find myself again counting down the minutes until I am set free - another thing I miss about Gosh-shoe - if I was counting down the minutes, I could always just dick around online or shoot a rubberband at Melanie. There's no mel here, and i don't even see any rubberbands..Note to self: wear more clothing tomorrow. AH! it's fucking cold!

I have been counting down the minutes since I got here. I would have totally traded the week's pay for staying home with Jen.

You know those stress balls with the smiley faces? We here they have them, complete with bodies (and a naked butt). The handed them out for people to use when they are stressed. well, apparently some people have been so stressed that when they squeezed their smiley man, his head popped off. People have them on the desks, little headless men - some have heads still attached but people have wrapped pipe cleaners around their necks like a noose. This is where I work. There is a giant bottle of Tylenol, extra strength headache in the department communal drawer. This is where I work.

9/68:20aI talked to bossman about coming in at 7a - because if Jen leaves the house to be at her job by 8a, I don't want to hang around in an empty apt. Plus if I come in at 7a, I'm out by 3:30p - missing both rush hours? She said that would prolly be fine and she asked me if I would be interested in working after peak. Of course I said I would, any job is better than no job, right? Wrong. I will fight like hell so that when my time here is up in December, my time here is UP. If I have to listen to calls all day again, I may die.

8:31aWhat doodles will I draw today? Since I'm confined to someone else's cube to listen to calls, I am without internet and stuck with my pen and paper.

8:40aJames apparently described me as the female version of him that smiles. I'm not sure how much I resemble a completely cynical, republican, ex-army, probably homophobic man.

9:20aThey got a new phone/interface system that is supposed to streamline things. I think it is quiet possibly the worst system ever designed. it takes five times as long to do the same thing as it did the last time I was here. Also, I saw one of the flyers they sent out advertising their product - ariela would be appalled, it is probably one of the most terrible examples of design I have ever seen.

8:28aThey asked everyone in February who they would want back, my name came up. They talked about getting me back in June or July - but no one ever got around to it. Thanks guys.

2:06pSo the job that I interviewed for here and did not get months ago...was filled by a complete idiot. Rumor has it that he is fucking up alot, I mean alot and is completely incompetent - take that not-to-be-bossman! I could have done it better, and I already knew the systems and the people - your loss!

2:35pOne of my coworkers just told me a story about something that happened while she was on a trip this past weekend. That's all well and good, except she told me the same story yesterday.

3:18pLet's talk about the new facebook mini-feed. Fucking creepy. Who wants to know every single move that someone makes on facebook. I often said that wouldn't it be cool if they highlighted changes to a facebook profile (because sometimes you hunt and hunt for what someone has changed - and in reality, they just corrected a misspelling) - but, I was never serious. the minifeed takes it way too far. by the same token, facebook is a free service and if you don't like it, you don't have to use it.

4:03pCold...so very cold.

4:21pThere's no time to update during training. Bossman used to be a hardcore call center manager - don't want to get off on wrong foot - this place sucks the life out of me like whoa.

9/7Um, so I skipped work. Called in sick...on my third day.

But I think that it's probably fine because who skips on Thursday? Friday and Monday, I understand, but Thursday?

9/88:46amSo I skipped yesterday - Jen has ruined me...it was just so easy. Get in the proper mindset, dial the number, sound like shit, blame it on Chinese food and you're free for the day - proceed to spend time laying around. . . all day. Be sure to look haggard the next morning (as if you've been throwing up, or otherwise sick) - comments from your boss like "you look like death warmed over" are good! The person in HR thought that I wasn't coming back because peak period sucks so badly - they thought I ran away. It's like when i was at Fungee and they had multiple people up and walk out because the job was that bad.

8:54amI'm sitting with Carl today - it should be more fun, he tends to get the calls done more quickly - leaving more time for him to play online games, and me to watch him. Here at Sham-Hex, fun is relative.

9:20amYesterday I did actually get up and leave for work, but Jen had planted the seed of calling in sick, so right before I got on the highway, I did it. Then I returned to the apartment, fucked around for a long while and then took a nap for a really long while. Point is, yesterday felt like two days, two weekdays - making today feel like Monday - except today is actually Friday! Hooray!

11:37amMy boss just told me, jokingly, that if I didn't do something right she would "flog me with a wet noodle."

12:59pmYou can feel the cold and the damp seep into you - my coworker again advised me to turn my heater on - I said it was September and I refused to turn it on, on principle.

1:08pmJob at Gosh-shoe posted - sucks because bossman may have a bad final impression of me due to factors beyond my control. In another note, I know that they are necessary, but, I hate taxes . . . a lot.

2:04pmStill watching Carl play online baseball. Then fun never stops.

2:23pmCarl and I were admonished by a caller "adjust your mouthpiece...I can't hear you" he said in a whiny voice.